I am greatfull that my daughter Mysti (9y/o) requested (for the millionth time) that she start her "Official Training" with me. She has played along side of me since age 2 and has always had fun trying to be like "Daddy". I have never made it a requirement for my little ones to train, and I have made them all ask repeatedly with me saying "Not Yet, when the time is right and you are ready, I will teach you".

I am proud to say, "You are ready!" to my Mysti.

She trained privately with me for 1hr last night. We covered her boxing stance and proper alignment. She worked basic boxing punches on both the "Clapper and Focus Mitts" then we worked some basic strikes with single and double sticks. Caveman, Punyan (hammer fist strike), and broken 6 w/ 2 sticks while working on replacement stepping.

I AM ONE PROUD PAPA! When I told her that she is starting a year younger than Bruce Lee started, her eyes lit up...

While I was on the road, while allowing someone to pass my guard I got overstacked and my left hip went out. Dull, aching pain for several days, lessened by my remedial actions, but there nonetheless. Back home now, today I am grateful for my absolutely wonderful chiropractor of many years, Dr. Shelly Bosten.

I am deeply grateful for the conversation with my son last night as we walked the dog. Likewise for the joy in buying my daughter a wonderful bicycle for her sixth birthday and seeing the joy in her as she sat on it and believed for the first time that she could learn to ride it. Today is her birthday party-- a pool party with some 20+ children coming to play.

Today, I am honestly grateful for some time to work on some graduate papers. Today, Guro Crafty was supposed to have a seminar at Surf Dog's, but it is going to be rescheduled. So, I am grateful for not having missed out on that, while having the chance to plow through some work at home.

Today I am thankful for having the ability to sleep in after a long week of work. And for the fact I will be able to attend my submission grappling class tonight after almost 2 weeks without a Friday session.

Logged

"Receiving human life, one should vow to transcend the rest of humanity, and be of aid to men. Exhausting his mind for others and making this his satisfaction to the end of time."

Today I'm grateful for the wonderful support structures I have in my life. My boss who's patience, generosity and kindness are an example to live by. My students who show me how much the care in the nicest ways. My wife who's never ceases to amaze me. My son who's little smile cheers me up even when I'm in the foulest of moods.

Today, I am grateful for the pace of yesterday and today. I was able to attend a great training session yesterday, a baseball game in the evening for my sister-in-law's birthday, and today I had a very productive day in grad. school.

Today, I am grateful for all of the opportunities in my life, particularly my education. If I have expressed any disappointment about money recently, I take it back. I am very lucky in many ways, and I need to appreciate all that I have.

Today, I am grateful for the experiences of my life that have allowed me to be who I am. I had an experience today that made me sit back and say to myself, "You know, I'm a fairly interesting person." I mean that with no arrogance. It's nice to like who you are, and I am grateful for the experiences, good and bad, that have made me who I am.

Today, I am grateful that it is the last (full) day of a week-long research seminar for some graduate work I am doing. I have about two and a half pages to go on a paper, and I will be happy to turn it in and move on! Tomorrow we debrief for a few hours in the morning, and then I am off for 4th of July fun with the family.

The Unanimous Declarationof the Thirteen United States of AmericaWhen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. -- And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Yesterday: I could not get to a computer so, yesterday I was grateful for the amazing men and women who have served and who serve our country in the armed forces. I was also grateful for all of those folks in law enforcement.

Today, I am grateful for my 20's, the whole decade, good and bad, as it comes to an end in about an hour and a half.

I just finished a seminar this weekend at the Canton OH Police Department training facility. During my three days there, the PD had a well-loved retired officer with a courageous career murdered and another officer murdered during a traffice stop. I am grateful for the men and those women who put on the badge and go forth every day.

Yesterday I spent 2.5 hours carefully dicing and cooking apples for my 9 month old son, which he didn't really enjoy. Last night I set him on the kitchen table. He picked up a nectarine out of the fruit bowl and ate most of it with his two opposable teeth, the whole time looking at his amazed family like "What? You never had a nectarine? You should try it."

I am grateful that my son knows what he is capable of and can prove it despite his old man.

I am grateful that he will discover wonderful things in life even if I'm too dumb to hand them to him.